Speaker 1: All right, so markets tumbled for the most part as
Speaker 1: trading opened today. We are kind of on a countdown here.
Speaker 1: We do not know what is going to happen when
Speaker 1: it comes to what President Trump is referring to as
Speaker 1: Liberation Day on Wednesday. Investors have continued to unload their
Speaker 1: holdings in the stock markets around the world in anticipation
Speaker 1: of the tariffs announcement that is coming on Wednesday. Just
Speaker 1: within the last few minutes, actually, the Dow Jones Industrial
Speaker 1: Average did turn back into positive territory, but S and
Speaker 1: P five hundred is down about a half a percent.
Speaker 1: The Nasdaq is down about a percent and a half.
Speaker 1: We've seen similar percentage losses in markets around the world today.
Speaker 1: Because of the power that the American economy has and
Speaker 1: the impact that the American economy has on the rest
Speaker 1: of the world.
Speaker 2: We live in a global economy. The idea that America
Speaker 2: is getting screwed over when it comes to tear some
Speaker 2: things made here and things not made here is maddening.
Speaker 2: And that is Trump's take on all of this. He
Speaker 2: believes that the US has long been ripped off by
Speaker 2: the European and the Asian powers that be, and if
Speaker 2: this is in fact, what he wants, he's going to
Speaker 2: be the one probably to pay for it when it
Speaker 2: comes to at least short term, long term, you know,
Speaker 2: one hundred years down the road. If this all pans out,
Speaker 2: and the factories come back to America and they come
Speaker 2: back to those communities that elected Trump, the russ Belts,
Speaker 2: the Sun Belt, all the Belts, if those factories come back,
Speaker 2: things become made in America again. My god, he'll be
Speaker 2: lauded as the best president ever. If they don't. If
Speaker 2: we struggle, if we are sent into another recession and
Speaker 2: we don't pull out of it, it is the worst
Speaker 2: president ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he did an interview of the weekend with Kristen
Speaker 1: Welker from NBC News, and I think there was another
Speaker 1: person that he did two separate interviews, and she asked
Speaker 1: him about, Okay, we know and everybody seems to acknowledge
Speaker 1: there is a temporary pain that comes with tariffs like
Speaker 1: this twenty five percent on cars that come into the
Speaker 1: United States and other tariffs as well, and he seems
Speaker 1: to say, basically, yeah, we know that this is a
Speaker 1: temporary thing, but if we have patients, it's going to
Speaker 1: in the end of this it's going to benefit the
Speaker 1: United States greatly going forward for the future generations, et cetera.
Speaker 1: He's gonna have a hard time selling that because we
Speaker 1: humans and we Americans like things to be done immediately.
Speaker 1: We want to see the impact right now. You know,
Speaker 1: we get impatient when egg prices go up, and then
Speaker 1: when they go down, we're thinking, why in the world
Speaker 1: didn't they go down fast?
Speaker 2: Get It's really not popular politically to do something like
Speaker 2: this for that very reason. You know, you don't see
Speaker 2: governors and presidents say I'm going to do something now
Speaker 2: that's going to hurt us for X amount of years,
Speaker 2: for eight, ten, twelve years, so that in fifty years
Speaker 2: we are better off, because they don't get credit for that.
Speaker 4: It's very unpopular. Now.
Speaker 2: Is this somebody who's reached the pinnacle of politics in
Speaker 2: America as the president and wants his legacy to be
Speaker 2: realized after he's dead, that he brought business back to
Speaker 2: America and America back to being the bully in the room,
Speaker 2: the good bully in the room when it comes to
Speaker 2: you're not going to screw us over and we're going
Speaker 2: to make things here.
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 5: This was him on air force one yesterday.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I'll play it when we come back,
Speaker 1: because he has some comments, he knows what's coming up.
Speaker 1: It's weird that there are very few people in the
Speaker 1: White House who know what he's going to do. And
Speaker 1: we said this last week when we knew that this
Speaker 1: deadline was coming up. He's done these before. He's talked
Speaker 1: about wide ranging blanket tariffs across industries or across countries,
Speaker 1: and then pulled back once we get closer to the deadline.
Speaker 1: There's a possibility that he still does that, but nobody
Speaker 1: in the White House seems to know what his plan is.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to see how this affects the auto industry
Speaker 2: because it's maybe one of the easier things to wrap
Speaker 2: your mind around. I have some questions out to people
Speaker 2: who work in the industry about what could happen if
Speaker 2: these tariffs move forward in terms of cars that are
Speaker 2: made in this country but get parts from elsewhere. Trump
Speaker 2: did touch on that during the interview as well.
Speaker 1: I got an email from a car dealership, and it's
Speaker 1: not worth They don't advertise with this, so I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say who it was, but I got an
Speaker 1: email that basically explained what the plan is for next week.
Speaker 1: Here's what we have, Here's what our cars are, Here's
Speaker 1: what the inventory looks like. Here's why you should come
Speaker 1: shop with us. I mean, it's a bitch to get
Speaker 1: you to go.
Speaker 4: I guess now the time is my question?
Speaker 2: If I'm in the market for a car, do I
Speaker 2: buy next week as opposed to six months down the line?
Speaker 4: Because you just don't know. I don't know, so give
Speaker 4: me a break.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the tariffs this week Wednesday, the President
Speaker 2: President Trump calling it Liberation Day, the day that the
Speaker 2: United States stops getting screwed over by other countries. Reciprocal
Speaker 2: tariffs in motion. What will it all mean? Already? The
Speaker 2: markets are responding globally. Overnight, you saw this happen in Asia,
Speaker 2: and the S and P five hundred sank about point
Speaker 2: six percent. I haven't seen an updated number, but sank
Speaker 2: about point six percent. On track to finish the first
Speaker 2: three months of the year with a loss of nearly
Speaker 2: six percent. That would make it this it's for its
Speaker 2: worst quarter in nearly three years. The Dow erased an
Speaker 2: early loss this morning. Slides for big tech slocks stocks
Speaker 2: I don't see.
Speaker 4: I can't talk either. Slides for big tech stocks.
Speaker 2: That's a stupid phrase anyway, probably because of what happened
Speaker 2: over the weekend with Yesla. Nasdaq was down as well,
Speaker 2: so it is a global selloff. There are worries that
Speaker 2: the tariffs could not be good, that they could worsen inflation,
Speaker 2: and it is it is not to be misremembered that
Speaker 2: we've gone through this before. Tariffs are as old as
Speaker 2: a conversation, as old as our country is in terms
Speaker 2: of are they good, are they bad?
Speaker 4: When are they good? When are they bad?
Speaker 2: You know, you saw tariffs be a problem for the
Speaker 2: Great Depression. They precipitated that post World War two. So
Speaker 2: and we're coming off the heels of inflation from COVID.
Speaker 2: So a lot of people in the know who are
Speaker 2: not political at all saying great thought, wonderful thought, bad time.
Speaker 1: Two things I'm going to play for you. This is
Speaker 1: the sound from last night Air Force one. President Trump
Speaker 1: headed back to DC. He sounds a little off, I
Speaker 1: mean like he sounds slow. I didn't do anything to
Speaker 1: alter this audio, even though it does sound like I did.
Speaker 1: I swear, but this is him last night making comments
Speaker 1: about the.
Speaker 3: TERRORIFFTSY tariffs will be far more generous than those countries
Speaker 3: were to us, meaning they will be kinder then those
Speaker 3: countries were.
Speaker 6: To the United States of America over the decades they
Speaker 6: ripped us off like no country's ever been ripped off
Speaker 6: in history. And we're gonna be much nicer than they
Speaker 6: were to us. But it's substantial money for the country.
Speaker 2: Never those It sounded very weird, he did, But you
Speaker 2: know what, he's going to be seventy nine in a month.
Speaker 2: He is been going at one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: miles per hour. For the first three months of this year,
Speaker 2: he's been going at one hundred and twenty five miles
Speaker 2: an hour.
Speaker 1: You mentioned specifically the audio industry and how it's facing this.
Speaker 1: A CNBC reporter was talking about it specifically and talked
Speaker 1: about how carmakers are basically scrambling to try to figure
Speaker 1: out how they're going to deal with this going forward.
Speaker 1: One of the things that President Trump wants to do
Speaker 1: by instituting these tariffs on foreign made cars coming into
Speaker 1: the United States, it's to ramp up production here in
Speaker 1: the United States. But it's not as easy, as Philibo
Speaker 1: will tell you. It's not as easy as just flipping
Speaker 1: a switch, which President says, well.
Speaker 7: There's some places that only have sixty percent capacity. It's
Speaker 7: not as simple as just flipping a switch, right, So
Speaker 7: there's tooling. There's also making sure that the plant and
Speaker 7: the supply chain can adjust and bring production from a
Speaker 7: particular plant overseas back here. But there's no doubt this
Speaker 7: is going to be a huge hit for the auto industry.
Speaker 7: One executive in the industry texted me earlier and he said,
Speaker 7: this is going to drive the auto industry, not the
Speaker 7: overall economy, strictly the auto industry into a recession.
Speaker 2: There was a comment that the President made to NBC
Speaker 2: News is Kristen Welker over the weekend.
Speaker 4: That's getting a lot of airplay this morning.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is his comment. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: don't don't have a recording of this.
Speaker 8: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think she just basically she recorded the interview and
Speaker 1: then talked about it. I haven't found anywhere that the
Speaker 1: audio exists.
Speaker 2: So he said, I couldn't care less if they raise
Speaker 2: prices with regard to the auto industry, because people are
Speaker 2: going to start buying American made cars. I couldn't care
Speaker 2: less because if the prices on foreign cars go up,
Speaker 2: they're going to buy American cars. That is a flipant response,
Speaker 2: it but it's also flippant to just roll with that
Speaker 2: and not talk about the context of the conversation, right
Speaker 2: of you're going to pay more now, you're going to
Speaker 2: pay less later.
Speaker 1: Well, and then somebody from the White House had to
Speaker 1: call NBC News and clarify that he was specifically talking
Speaker 1: about foreign cars raising their prices or foreign automakers raising
Speaker 1: their prices for cars. Right, Okay, So I referenced this
Speaker 1: email that I got from a car dealer that I
Speaker 1: have done business with before, and it explains kind of
Speaker 1: what their plan is. It said they have a current
Speaker 1: inventory of about three thousand new vehicles that would be
Speaker 1: unaffected by all of this.
Speaker 5: It's terriff free.
Speaker 1: And they said, and this is an important thing for
Speaker 1: anybody who might be in the market now. The silver
Speaker 1: lining is that your trade in is potentially worth significantly more.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a Again, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: which dealer it is, because I'm sure they've all got
Speaker 1: similar plans to reach out to customers and say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what we're looking at, but that they also
Speaker 1: don't know since the twenty five percent tariff applies to
Speaker 1: parts and components. Every vehicle will be affected, even those
Speaker 1: built in America, because as every vehicle has parts and
Speaker 1: components that are imported, and again some of that stuff
Speaker 1: has not been specified by the White House in terms
Speaker 1: of how is that going to impact American car makers
Speaker 1: who bring in foreign parts.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of Jerry Brown talking about trains
Speaker 2: in this.
Speaker 5: I like trains.
Speaker 2: The President's idealized version of a nineteen fifties America where
Speaker 2: everyone buys American made cars and buy local, buy American.
Speaker 2: I love it, but we're in twenty twenty five and
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to do that.
Speaker 1: It's again, and that's why we need the specifics.
Speaker 5: I don't know how they do it.
Speaker 1: You can't just come up twelve oh one Wednesday morning
Speaker 1: and then everybody's looking around going, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much I'm supposed to charge for this.
Speaker 5: I just don't know.
Speaker 8: I like trains. I like high speed trains.
Speaker 2: Eating two I do too, Jerry. I also like buy American.
Speaker 2: But you know what, I think these ships have passed us. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2: We'll see, we shall see. Well, this is the week
Speaker 2: we have talked about for quite some time. Now, remember
Speaker 2: President Trump put the tariffs in place and decided, I'll
Speaker 2: give you some time to acclimate to these new changes,
Speaker 2: so I'll actually put them in place in April. Well,
Speaker 2: guess what tomorrow is April. The President has set his
Speaker 2: aim in imposing these tariffs is to force companies to
Speaker 2: move production back to the United States, and if they
Speaker 2: make their goods in America, he says, they won't have
Speaker 2: to pay the tariffs.
Speaker 1: When you talk specifically about the auto industry, it's not
Speaker 1: as cut and dry as saying that car was built
Speaker 1: in Germany, this car was built in Detroit. That car
Speaker 1: is going to have a twenty five percent tariff, and
Speaker 1: this one isn't. It's not that simple, because, as we've
Speaker 1: seen over the course of decades, the way that the
Speaker 1: auto industry has evolved, a lot of those even American
Speaker 1: car makers, get parts and pieces from other countries. So,
Speaker 1: according to what the White House has said so far,
Speaker 1: imported parts and pieces, cogs and wheels, they will be
Speaker 1: subject to that twenty five percent terariff. And then obviously
Speaker 1: a car built entirely elsewhere would be subject to the
Speaker 1: whole price of it would be subject to that twenty
Speaker 1: five percent tariff, but we don't know specifically if the
Speaker 1: twenty five percent tariff on a on an O two
Speaker 1: sensor in your Ford minivan is going to be subjected,
Speaker 1: and how that would impact the rest of the price
Speaker 1: of the vehicle that's built for the most part in
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 2: It's talking to some people in the industry and pointing
Speaker 2: out to me that new vehicles still haven't come down
Speaker 2: since COVID because remember.
Speaker 4: The price of new cars, Yeah, the price of new cars.
Speaker 2: So the rates are still high and now this hoping
Speaker 2: for some sort of ceiling, but that if you are
Speaker 2: in the market to buy a car, it's probably better
Speaker 2: now because down the line, someone's going to be paying
Speaker 2: the tariffs, whether it's you the customer or the dealership,
Speaker 2: and both of those don't translate to you getting a
Speaker 2: better deal.
Speaker 5: Well, I mentioned that there.
Speaker 1: I got an email from a dealership over the weekend
Speaker 1: in this context and said, we have plenty of cars,
Speaker 1: you know, new cars that on our lots that are
Speaker 1: not subject to tariffs because they're already made, and now
Speaker 1: might be the time to think about your trade in
Speaker 1: because people are going to start looking for used cars
Speaker 1: a lot more and those prices of used cars are
Speaker 1: going to bounce back up, y say, will for right.
Speaker 1: So again it's this weird wait and see kind of
Speaker 1: attitude for what exactly happens beginning April. It's midnight April second.
Speaker 1: So the very very first thing Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2: Well, and the thing is, like some people don't know,
Speaker 2: Like Neil today said, oh, we both drive GMCs. Yes
Speaker 2: you think you bought American you did, but parts in
Speaker 2: those cars are made in other areas.
Speaker 4: It's not as easy as saying.
Speaker 2: Oh I bought Ford, I bought Chevy, I bought GMC's.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of the hearts of those cars that
Speaker 2: are made in Mexico or Canada or what have you,
Speaker 2: across you know, computer systems.
Speaker 1: The two motivations that Trump has said he has behind
Speaker 1: this is he wants he wants to lower taxes, and
Speaker 1: the way that he would do that, according to Peter Navarro,
Speaker 1: senior trade advisor, is that the tariffs would raise about
Speaker 1: six trillion over the next decade and that money would
Speaker 1: not have to be gathered from taxes, so then they
Speaker 1: would be able to cut taxes. The other thing is
Speaker 1: that he would want he the president, would want to
Speaker 1: drive manufacturing back to the United States where some of
Speaker 1: these automakers right now are only running at about a
Speaker 1: sixty percent capacity when it comes to cranking out these vehicles,
Speaker 1: and that he wants to see them that number increased.
Speaker 1: But they've been running at that level for a long time,
Speaker 1: and to get it back up to one hundred percent
Speaker 1: or whatever percentage he's shooting for, that's going to take many,
Speaker 1: many years of retooling the lines, getting everything, hiring the workers,
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So well, market Watch and Bloomberg call Ryan Sweet one
Speaker 2: of the most accurate forecasters of the US economy. Ryan's
Speaker 2: going to be coming on with us next to talk
Speaker 2: about what we can expect.
Speaker 1: We love to have smarter people than us help explain
Speaker 1: some of this stuff.
Speaker 5: And Ryan Sweet qualifies.
Speaker 1: He's the chief US economist at Oxford Economics, responsible for
Speaker 1: forecasting and assessing the economic outlook. He's an adjunct professor
Speaker 1: in economics and finance at Westchester University of Pennsylvania. Ryan,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking time out of your smart day
Speaker 1: to hang out with a couple of people like us.
Speaker 8: Oh now, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2: So it depends, it seems on who you ask on
Speaker 2: whether this is going to raise revenue directly if that
Speaker 2: contradicts the goal of using tariffs to bring factories back
Speaker 2: to the US.
Speaker 4: What is your take on this short term and long term?
Speaker 8: Well, and the short term is going to call us
Speaker 8: some economic pain.
Speaker 9: You are inflationary. They are going to raise the price
Speaker 9: level for a lot of goods that we import. It
Speaker 9: will generate, right venue. I mean, the US Government's going
Speaker 9: to collect a boatload of money through these tariffs, and
Speaker 9: that might be helped or maybe used to help pay
Speaker 9: for some of the fiscal steamulus that's coming down the
Speaker 9: road via extension of the Trump tax cuts, maybe some
Speaker 9: additional stimulus, or pay for some funding around their bonus
Speaker 9: appreciation things like that for businesses. Longer term, you know,
Speaker 9: the jury is going to be out on whether or not,
Speaker 9: you know, Trump's approach to trade policy is successful, and
Speaker 9: it's going to be based on whether or not we
Speaker 9: bring back a lot of jobs in manufacturing. And I'm
Speaker 9: skeptical in that regards because even with tariffs, comparative advantage.
Speaker 9: As an economists, I still believe in comparative advantage, and
Speaker 9: you know, the US has a disadvantage when it comes
Speaker 9: to wage rates, they're much lower in other parts of
Speaker 9: the world. Just the reshoring of a lot of manufacturing
Speaker 9: is going to be very, very expensive for a lot
Speaker 9: of companies, and the age of the manufacturing capital stock
Speaker 9: in the US is pretty old.
Speaker 1: Well, if one of the promoted benefits of this tear
Speaker 1: off plan the way it's laid out, at least we'll
Speaker 1: see if it actually comes to fruition on Wednesday morning.
Speaker 1: But if one of the benefits is to re energize
Speaker 1: our manufacturing capabilities here, is that too rosy? An outlook
Speaker 1: is that are they overshooting what they think is that?
Speaker 1: Are they overshooting what will happen?
Speaker 9: Well, I think it's all on the messaging, And I
Speaker 9: mean the messaging can be different from reality when it
Speaker 9: comes from an economic perspective.
Speaker 8: I do think there will be reshoring.
Speaker 9: For example, semiconductors, chips, they're the poster child for being
Speaker 9: able to get reshored.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 9: I think the Trump administration should kind of level set
Speaker 9: and you know, kind of layout. The areas that will
Speaker 9: be reshort are more tard. It's not a broad based
Speaker 9: reshoring of US manufacturing. So for example, very labor intensive
Speaker 9: apparel manufacturing will not come back.
Speaker 8: To the US and North Carolina.
Speaker 9: South Carolina will not see apparel manufacturing come back, just
Speaker 9: because the US doesn't have a comparative advantage in that
Speaker 9: US's advantage is in very high capital intensive manufacturer goods,
Speaker 9: and that's more likely and not going to be reshort
Speaker 9: over time. So there's how some of my list would
Speaker 9: be further reshoring of chips, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, biomeds.
Speaker 8: Those are the things that will likely.
Speaker 9: Get reshored, whereas apparel will probably be at the very
Speaker 9: bottom of that list. And I know steel and aluminum
Speaker 9: gets a lot of headlines, but the steel capital of
Speaker 9: the US used to be Pittsburgh in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 9: seventies and eighties. That economy has completely reinvented itself. It's
Speaker 9: now EDGs and meds and tech. And it's not like
Speaker 9: you can turn on and off a switch to a
Speaker 9: city like Pittsburgh. They can't just flip over to being
Speaker 9: back to the steel capital of the US.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: That's a very good point.
Speaker 2: We talked about it a little bit earlier, how some
Speaker 2: of these ideas sound good by American made things like
Speaker 2: that bringing the jobs back to the Rust Belt and
Speaker 2: the sun Belt, and you know all the places of
Speaker 2: disenfranchised voters who voted Trump and to hope to bring
Speaker 2: back some sort of industry to those various places. Pittsburgh's
Speaker 2: one of them that has moved on. So what do
Speaker 2: you see, like you bring up a peril that that
Speaker 2: would not be something that came back, at least not
Speaker 2: at this point. So what kind of impact would that
Speaker 2: have on the economy if a peril would not be reshort?
Speaker 8: Oh, not a big impact.
Speaker 9: I mean in the grand scheme of things, you know, separating,
Speaker 9: I think you hit the nail on the head early on.
Speaker 9: I mean, the short term impacts are going to be
Speaker 9: different than the long term impacts. In the short run,
Speaker 9: in the price level for a lot of goods is
Speaker 9: going to go up. That's going to do people's real
Speaker 9: disposable income. So you and I are going to feel
Speaker 9: the pinch, and more likely than not, a lot of
Speaker 9: people are going to pause or slow their spending. And
Speaker 9: consumer spending makes about seventy percent of US GDP, So
Speaker 9: you're kind of hitting the most important part of the economy,
Speaker 9: and that's the consumer.
Speaker 8: And the other thing.
Speaker 9: In the short run, I think you know what's really
Speaker 9: behind the recent softening in the economy is just all
Speaker 9: the uncertainty. You know, the tariffs are on, the tarifts
Speaker 9: are off. Businesses really don't know the rules of the game.
Speaker 9: So in that instance, they just sit on their hands
Speaker 9: and they're not investing.
Speaker 8: You know, at some point they may slow hiring.
Speaker 9: Even further if they don't know what tarifs are going
Speaker 9: to be next month, next year, two years from now,
Speaker 9: and uncertainly can be suffocating to the economy.
Speaker 8: And that's kind of what we're in the midst of
Speaker 8: right now. Now.
Speaker 9: Longer term, you know, there's a lot of factors that
Speaker 9: are going to play into whether or not you know,
Speaker 9: Trump's approach to industrial policy wins. I mean, if the
Speaker 9: goal is to eliminate the US trade deficit, then you
Speaker 9: know this approach is not going to address it. Trade
Speaker 9: deficits aren't a bad thing the US consumer. You and I,
Speaker 9: we just buy a lot of stuff and we don't
Speaker 9: produce a lot of things here, and bringing some of
Speaker 9: back some of those goods that we do produce here,
Speaker 9: I think, you know, the hurdles are just too big
Speaker 9: to overcome, just given that the US's comparative advantage is
Speaker 9: in capital intensive goods, it's not in labor intensive goods
Speaker 9: like apparel.
Speaker 1: The uncertainty that we've seen has taken a toll on
Speaker 1: Wall Street. Although the Dow has gained another two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty points, it's up to sixty seven as we speak,
Speaker 1: but it started in negative territory.
Speaker 5: This morning.
Speaker 1: Overseas markets were not great, they were negative because of
Speaker 1: the uncertainty. Are there any are there any positives in
Speaker 1: the market right now? Are there any positives in relation
Speaker 1: to the threat of tariffs that you can see?
Speaker 9: Well, those segments of the economy that are less immune
Speaker 9: or less sensitive to teriffs, and they're hard to find
Speaker 9: in the sense that you know, this is different than
Speaker 9: Trump's first trade war, if we're going down to trade
Speaker 9: war analogy, because this is broad based. I mean, you know,
Speaker 9: there's nowhere to hide from these tariffs, and it's going
Speaker 9: to raise input costs for a lot of businesses. It's
Speaker 9: going to get passed on, some of it, not all
Speaker 9: to you and I, so that's going to raise prices.
Speaker 9: So I do think that the uncertainty is affecting, you know,
Speaker 9: almost every segment of the US economy because businesses just
Speaker 9: again they don't know the rules of the game, so
Speaker 9: they're they're.
Speaker 8: Sitting on their hands.
Speaker 9: I think the good news is that I've spent a
Speaker 9: lot of time in my career looking at the economics
Speaker 9: of policy uncertainty, is that once when some of this
Speaker 9: uncertainty becomes certainty, whether it's what businesses want or they
Speaker 9: don't want, things start to pick back up. You know,
Speaker 9: business are going to invest in equipment and software, They're
Speaker 9: going to hire workers because the US businesses they're very adaptable.
Speaker 9: They just need to know the rules of the game.
Speaker 9: And I think on the other side of this, you know,
Speaker 9: as these dark clouds are to part, at some point
Speaker 9: the economy should start to find its footing again.
Speaker 2: And then used vehicles before we let you go, it
Speaker 2: seems like this may be a time for used vehicles
Speaker 2: to shine.
Speaker 4: If you've got.
Speaker 2: One, maybe, I mean, I don't know, you know, I've
Speaker 2: been talking to people in the car industry and they
Speaker 2: just don't know what's going to happen other than it's
Speaker 2: probably not going to get better for the consumer or
Speaker 2: the dealer for a while.
Speaker 8: I think that's right.
Speaker 9: I mean, that's generally the response that you're getting from
Speaker 9: a lot of businesses that we don't know, and consumers,
Speaker 9: mostly consumers, some are aware of what terifts are going
Speaker 9: to do the prices for various goods, some are not.
Speaker 9: But right now with the used vehicle market, I mean,
Speaker 9: if you put terraffs on imported vehicles, you know, the
Speaker 9: one thing that we kind of have going for us
Speaker 9: now is that we do have some inventory. But the
Speaker 9: wildcard is whether or not tr puts tariffs.
Speaker 8: On those inventories.
Speaker 9: And you know, say, if they were imported, you know,
Speaker 9: six months ago, nine months ago, they're still subject to tariffs,
Speaker 9: which is in the purview of his ability. With these
Speaker 9: reciprocal terrafs, vehicle prices are going to go up. I mean,
Speaker 9: I think that's the only you know, guarantee over the
Speaker 9: next few months, is that we're going to see higher
Speaker 9: vehicle prices.
Speaker 8: Hopefully down the road. It may not be tomorrow.
Speaker 9: Or Wednesday or next week that the Trump administration does
Speaker 9: start to water down some of these terrafs by excluding
Speaker 9: motor vehicle and parts, because you know, that's a that's
Speaker 9: an important sector to the US.
Speaker 8: Economy, and also hopefully building materials.
Speaker 9: We do import a lot of building materials from China, Canada, Mexico,
Speaker 9: and we're trying to aims to improve housing affordability over time.
Speaker 9: Putting tariffs on you know, building materials is not the
Speaker 9: best way of going about that.
Speaker 5: Ryan, great stuff.
Speaker 1: This is is going to be interesting week as these uh,
Speaker 1: these terrafs play out.
Speaker 5: Over the course of the next few days.
Speaker 1: Ryan Sweet again us chief economist at Oxford Economics.
Speaker 5: You can follow him.
Speaker 1: On the Twitter machine at real time underscore econ.
Speaker 5: Ryan, thanks for taking time for us today.
Speaker 8: Thank you so much for having me